VMware has pledged to support the 64-bit extended architectures of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel for its virtual machine software running on both Windows and Linux over the next 18 months. Update: This article covers changes in VMWare Workstation 4.5 compared to the previous version, 4.0.
VMware Pledges To Support 64-Bit Extended Windows, Linux
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I think this a step in the right direction. I would definatly like to have a 4-way opteron system running vmware esx server and several virtual machines.
To me ESX server is the only way to go. Unfortunatly I can’t afford a copy
I do have a copy of vmware workstation 4 and find it to be nice. I just don’t like having to run graphics (linux host) to use it. It also tends to be slow and I hear that ESX server runs at near hardware speed.
Cool, so now I can run 64 bit windows on my 32 bit machine?
Right now VMware is great. I use both Workstation 4.5 and GSX 3.0. They are both rock solid and mostly easy to use. And believe me, installing Linux in a VM is 100 times easier and faster than installing on real hardware! As VMWare can mount ISO images as virtual drives, it makes those media checks / installs just fly!
However… it would be great to host 64-bit operating systems on my 64-bit hardware (Opteron). And it would be great to have Virtual SMP capabilities in Workstation/GSX. Unfortunately Virtual SMP is only in VMWare’s custom kernel version, ESX.
VMware is quite stable on Tyan/Opteron by the way. I’m looking forward to getting the next edition (with 16 DIMM slots, not 10) of Tyan’s 4-way Opteron board and seeing how VMware GSX utilizes NUMA (if at all). It’s hard to tell on the two dual Opteron systems we have so far.
I’m definitely looking forward to a full 64-bit edition of VMware. Keep up the good work, Palo Alto hackers 🙂
So has VMWare Workstation 4.5 fixed the issue with cdrom drives in 2.6? I was never able to get ide-scsi working under the 2.6 kernel, although I didn’t try very hard since VMWare is the only software I use that requires it, so I’ve been doing the “‘dd’ to an image and set VMWare to the image for the CD drive” dance for a while now…
-Signals
Cool, so now I can run 64 bit windows on my 32 bit machine?
I don’ think it works that way. Sure there are emulators that will alow one to do just that, but VMWare isn’t one of them.
I would prefer a free version of Vmware for home and non-profit users … Vmware is a great product but is very overpriced for home and non-profit users.
This is the reason why Vmware is the #1 comercial linux appz on edonkey/emule network and other P2P networks…